


What’s a Sophie?—The First Con Job

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 06:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7033201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her ability to act was not on a stage.  Takes place during The Nigerian Job, season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What’s a Sophie?—The First Con Job

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I watched the pilot again, for the fourth time. So much subtext that happens between Nate and Sophie. Well written characters performed by great actors. Geez, wish the show was still on.

Takes place during the first episode of the series, The Nigerian Job

What’s a Sophie?—The First Con Job

Sophie, Sophie, Sophie.

He hadn’t seen her in a few years.  Nate had other, more pressing things to think about, like his failed marriage, his lost job, his son, lying on that cold bed, dead in Nate’s arms. 

Once, during Sam’s funeral, he thought he’d seen her off in the distance, but it could have been the sun fooling him, or the fact that he really couldn’t see very well, with all the booze he’d poured into himself after it had happened.  He still was pouring alcohol into himself, to dull the pain of what had happened.  That certainly hadn’t changed.

Sophie hadn’t changed either, at least physically.  What he didn’t understand was why she wasn’t in the game anymore.  As he researched her, Nate realized that she hadn’t stolen anything in over two years.  Her last score was right after Sam had died.  And that one hadn’t been large. 

Did her ability to grift go away when he wasn’t in the game anymore?  He hoped that wasn’t the case.  Her drive based on him chasing her?  Certainly she stole things that weren’t on IYS’s radar.  He knew of several items that were insured by other companies that had to be linked to her somehow.

As he watched her perform Shakespeare up on that stage, he soaked in her presence.  No, of course they didn’t understand.  That was not what she was made for.  Her ability to act was not on a stage.  She had to be breaking some kind of law, lying to a mark to take what she could.  There wasn’t anything to take being up on a stage, except for the money it cost to enter the theatre.  The other three looked on her in sheer terror.  He looked at her as the best actress ever born.

As she approached him in that alley, he thought about taking her hand and running, possibly back to Paris, or even Tuscany.  Of course, he didn’t have more than a twenty left to his name, so he wasn’t sure how he’d manage to do that.  She had money though, plenty from all the scores she had completed while he was chasing her.  How else did she live in the U.S., earning a meager keep from acting in small theatres?

Even in that alley, the smell of her was overwhelming, even with the trash and the whiskey that he had downed not twenty minutes before.  It was always something exotic with her, whether her choice in food or perfume.  There was a hint of jasmine that made him think of her every time he encountered it.

Her voice was lyrical, bringing him back to the first time she said her name.  It wasn’t her con voice or any of her accents.  Her real, honest to goodness voice.  He almost trembled as he listened to her agree to join with the team.  What he wouldn’t do to bury his nose in her hair, feel her warmth and softness, escape his dead existence if just for a little while.  She made him feel alive again.

None of them would understand how his mind worked.  Sophie did, understood how to get into the mind of the mark, figure out how to claim what was needed to complete the job.  She’d done it for him several times.  Watching her work was pure magic.  They’d see, after she took down Dubenich.  Sure, they’d help.  But they couldn’t do it without her. She was the key, the linchpin in their con.  Without her, they’d lose all that money they were promised.  They’d lose their reputations.  They’d almost lost their lives already, but that was still not off the table.

Dubenich needed to go down for what he did.  What better person than the beautiful Brit with the penchant for expensive shoes?

She smiled his way after agreeing to see this out.  He’d missed that smile, the way she moved, the way her eyes told him much more than her words ever did.  And she only did that for him.  Or at least, that’s what she told him, a long time ago, a world away from where he was at that moment in time.

 

Later on, as they planned the con, Sophie kept looking at him like he’d grown two heads.  Sure, he was different.  Life had changed him for the worse.  She had to see that.

“Incoming,” Eliot said as he walked away from Nate’s telling him they weren’t friends.

He didn’t need any friends.  Most of them had walked away after Sam had died.  A few of them had tried to intervene, help him out with job offers and offers of a shoulder.  He didn’t need a shoulder.  He needed his son back.  Nothing could make that happen.  If he could accomplish a big score, then maybe he could find a way to get back at IYS, find something on them.  Only not having a dime to his name wouldn’t help him at all.

“Hey, can you help me with this earpiece?”

Sophie, yet again.  Nate just wished she’d walk away, give him space to breathe.  It was very difficult to do that while her scent filled his mind and soul with longing.  Not that it wasn’t the first time he’d felt that way while she was around.  This time he could do something about it.  All the other times, he could not.  Loyalty was not a factor, nor was guilt.  There’d be no guilt if he was able to convince her that he wanted her.  Only he really didn’t think she would take him up on that.

“Thanks. So, uh, this time you really are inside my head.”

He almost groaned in frustration.  Sophie had told him one time she thought he could see inside her head.  It was just his way of reading her, something he didn’t think anyone else could do. 

The tension between the two of them could be read by the rest of the team.  Even Hardison had commented on it, very much a juvenile response, but it was there.  If they could see that there had been something between Nate and Sophie, could anyone else?

He savored watching her perform, making Dubenich believe her story hook, line and sinker.  The others were impressed that she could pull it off with little time.  The Nigerian scam would only work if she was on point.  Dubenich didn’t have to believe everything she said.  She just needed to make everyone else believe her.  He’d be looking for everything else except what was right in front of him.  Everything that they had to prove about Dubenich was true, up to a point.  He’d taken the bribe, the Nigerians were real and the FBI would hound him until they found something amiss.  They would.  Not exactly what Nate had planned in his con, but they would find out how dirty Dubenich was.  It wasn’t just about the bribe.  It was about destroying Dubenich.  Sophie was the key.

Once the con was finished, they’d go their own way.  He’d have enough money to plan on bringing down Blackpoole.  Only none of them wanted to leave.  Hardison first, Parker next, Eliot, then his phone rang, Sophie on the other end. 

It took him six months to pull it together, but it happened.  Leverage Incorporated was invented. They each had their own offices, their own phones, own pensions, everything created by Hardison’s crafty fingers.  The money he had gotten from the last score was divided up between the hospital, the new offices and the con that he was now planning.  It would take weeks, months to figure out how to destroy Blackpoole.  He’d do it, eventually.  Now all he had to take care of were other clients, people in need of help that couldn’t exactly go to the authorities.  Nate would make that work.  Until then, he had a con to plan.  And no one, including Sophie, would get in his way.

Black King, White Knight.  What side would he play?  With Sophie by his side, did it matter?


End file.
